Taskbar
A taskbar or dock is a bar displayed on an edge of a GUI desktop that is used to launch and monitor running applications. Microsoft introduced the taskbar in Windows 95 in 1995 and the feature has been a defining aspect of Microsoft Windows's graphical user interface and many other operating systems and desktop environments since. Windows 1.0 Windows 1.0, released in 1985, features a horizontal bar located at the bottom of the screen where running programs reside when minimized (referred to as "iconization" at the time), represented by icons. A window can be minimized by double-clicking its title bar, dragging it onto an empty spot on the bar, or by issuing a command from one of its menus. A minimized window is restored by double-clicking its icon or dragging the icon out of the bar. The bar features multiple slots for icons and expands vertically to provide with more rows as more slots are needed. Its color is the same as that of the screen background, which can be customized. Minimized windows can be freely placed in any of the empty slots. Program windows cannot overlap the bar unless maximized. Appearence The default settings for the taskbar in Microsoft Windows place it at the bottom of the screen and includes from left to right the Start menu button, Quick Launch bar, taskbar buttons, and notification area. The Quick Launch toolbar was added with the Windows Desktop Update and is not enabled by default in Windows XP. Windows 7 removed the Quick Launch feature in favor of pinning applications to the taskbar itself. On Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, a hotspot located in the bottom-left corner of the screen replaces the Start button, although this change is reverted in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. The taskbar was originally developed as a feature of Windows 95, but it was based on a similar user interface feature called the tray that was developed as part of Microsoft's Cairo project. With the release of Windows XP, Microsoft changed the behavior of the taskbar to take advantage of Fitts's law by removing a border of pixels surrounding the Start button which did not activate the menu, allowing the menu to be activated by clicking directly in the corner of the screen. Components * The Start button, a button that invokes the Start menu. It appears in Windows 9x, Windows NT 4.0 and all its successors, except Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. * The Quick Launch bar, introduced on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 through the Windows Desktop Update for Internet Explorer 4 and bundled with Windows 98, contains shortcuts to applications. Windows provides default entries, such as Launch Internet Explorer Browser, and the user or third-party software may add any further shortcuts that they choose. A single click on the application's icon in this area launches the application. This section may not always be present: for example it is turned off by default in Windows XP and Windows 7. * The Windows shell places a taskbar button on the taskbar whenever an application creates an unowned window: that is, a window that doesn't have a parent and that is created according to normal Windows user interface guidelines. Typically all Single Document Interface applications have a single taskbar button for each open window, although modal windows may also appear there. ** Windows 98 and Windows Desktop Update for Windows 95 introduced the ability to minimize foreground windows by clicking their button on the taskbar. ** Windows 2000 introduced balloon notifications. ** Windows Me added an option to disable moving or resizing the taskbar. ** Windows XP introduced taskbar grouping, which can group the taskbar buttons of several windows from the same application into a single button. This button pops up a menu listing all the grouped windows when clicked. This keeps the taskbar from being overcrowded when many windows are open at once. ** Windows Vista introduced window previews which show thumbnail views of the application in real-time. This capability is provided by the Desktop Window Manager. Start menu tooltip no longer says "Click here to begin". Now, says simply "Start". ** Windows 7 introduced jumplists which are menus that provide shortcuts to recently opened documents, frequently opened documents, folders paths (in case of Windows Explorer), or various options (called Tasks) which apply to that specific program or pinned website shortcut. Jump lists appear when the user right-clicks on an icon in the taskbar or drags the icon upwards with the mouse left click. Recent and frequent files and folders can be pinned inside the jump list. ** Windows 7 introduced the ability to pin applications to the taskbar so that buttons for launching them appear when they are not running. Previously, the Quick launch was used to pin applications to the taskbar; however, running programs appeared as a separate button. ** Windows 7 removed several classic taskbar features. * Deskbands are minimized functional, long-running programs, such as Windows Media Player. Programs that minimize to deskbands aren't displayed in the taskbar. * The notification area is the portion of the taskbar that displays icons for system and program features that have no presence on the desktop as well as the time and the volume icon. It contains mainly icons that show status information, though some programs, such as Winamp, use it for minimized windows. By default, this is located in the bottom-right of the primary monitor (or bottom-left on languages of Windows that use right-to-left reading order), or at the bottom of the taskbar if docked vertically. The clock appears here, and applications can put icons in the notification area to indicate the status of an operation or to notify the user about an event. For example, an application might put a printer icon in the status area to show that a print job is under way, or a display driver application may provide quick access to various screen resolutions. The notification area is commonly referred to as the system tray, which Microsoft states is wrong, although the term is sometimes used in Microsoft documentation, articles, software descriptions, and even applications from Microsoft such as Bing Desktop. Raymond Chen suggests the confusion originated with systray.exe, a small application that controlled some icons within the notification area in Windows 95. The notification area is also referred to as the status area by Microsoft. ** In older versions of Windows the notification area icons were limited to 16 colors. Windows Me added support for high color notification area icons. ** Starting with Windows XP, the user can choose to always show or hide some icons, or hide them if inactive for some time. A button allows the user to reveal all the icons. ** Starting with Windows Vista, the taskbar notification area is split into two areas; one reserved for system icons including clock, volume, network and power. The other is for applications. * Since the Windows 95 Desktop Update, the Quick Launch bar featured Show desktop as one of its default shortcuts, which automatically minimizes all opened applications. On Windows 7, a dedicated Show desktop button was placed to the right of the notification area. With the "Peek" option enabled, hovering over the button hides all opened windows to expose the desktop (leaving outlines of them on-screen). See also * Components